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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Raja Alem, Katharine Halls (translator) and Adam Talib (translator)Matthew Tree|title= The DoveWe's Necklace|rating= 3|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= I always hated Lit-Crit at school, so it came as something as a surprise that I ended up reviewing books, for fun. Now I understand. Finally, I see why literary critics get so up-in-arms about lowly book reviewers. There is a difference. This book explains it all. The author is ''the first woman to win the International Prize for Arabic fiction'' for this book. The book also the LiBerator prize for ''the best book translated into German'' in 2014. I suspect it's not done yet. ''The Times'' tells us that it ''exemplifies everything that is currently shaking the foundations of Arab society.'' I am sure that not only will more plaudits fall upon the author and the book, but also that it will become a classic, spoken of in the same breath as the international classics: Proust, Márquez, Joyce, Rushdie, Nabokov…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715651757</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Daniel Kehlmann and Ross Benjamin (translator)|title=You Should Have Leftll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction |summary=Our narrator is a screenwriter, tasked with coming up with a sequel Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his hit movie ''Besties'' – father, a film which helped pay for a house, but which his actress wife keeps letting him know, isn't ''art''. To concentrate, the family – he, the wife, drunk and their four year old daughter – have rented a large, modern house chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at the end any of a horrid, hairpin bend-filled road, in a charming alpine landscape. But things aren't right. The couple are at loggerheads too much, things keep unsettling our narrator, his artistic passions all failed miserably and the sole shopkeeper for miles around is ready with the Hammer Horror styled warnings who had endless crises of strange eventsself confidence. Quickly we see the book's title in all its galling clarity – but it isn't too late So Tim applied himself to get out… is it? And out of whathis studies, exactly?cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786484048</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Tove JanssonB0C47LV1PC|title= Letters From Klara|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Famed in the UK for her creation of the Moomin family, Jansson is rather belatedly beginning to gather the richly deserved esteem for her adult writings. For that I offer my heart-felt thanks to publishers ''Sort of books'' and Thomas Teal, who has been responsible for most of the translations. Receiving this one, two things strike: firstly I somehow seem to have missed one of the series, and secondly there'll come a time sooner rather than later when there'll be no more to be had. The former will be rectified, the latter is a sad thought.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745614</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewFragility|author=Tom Malmquist and Henning Koch (translator)|title=In Every Moment We Are Still AliveMosby Woods|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Tom Malmquist is Can you make a poet from Sweden. Originally published in Swedish in 2015''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, this is his first work of prose. While the question should you make it's being marketed as a novel? Or is the question if you did, would it reads more like a stylized memoirland? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no. Similar to Karl Ove Knausgaard ''Fragility''s books, it features the author is set as the central character and narratorcity of Portland, and Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the story of grief it tells is a highly personal one.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473640008</amazonuk>restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Michel DeonMosby Woods|title= Your Father's Room|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= I don't feel altogether qualified to review Michel Déon's 2004 fictionalised memoir ''Your Father's Room'', translated here into English for the first time. I hadn't heard of Déon before receiving my copy, let alone read any of his books, published over a 70 year period to much acclaim in his homeland. But it's part of the pleasure of book reviewing to read with no prior knowledge or prejudice, all the more so if you discover an absolute gem.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477346</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Naomi Alderman|title= The Power|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=It started with the girls and spread. From younger woman to older woman, it was awoken and everything changed. Womankind now has the power of electricity in their fingertips and, slowly at first, the balance of power in the world starts shifting. We follow the stories of different people, in different walks of life, who see this from the very beginning and hurtle towards 'the event'. One thing in this startling new development is certain, patriarchal archetypes and chauvinist thinkers are in for the shock of their lives. Literally. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919969</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Anna Pitoniak|title=The FuturesA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Evan Peck, he has just started at Yale College, where he plays ice hockeyThe West isn't the dominant force it once was. Like lots Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of the other playersaction. Governments are flailing. A war here, he a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is actually Canadianin actual charge. Imagine then, from small-town British Columbiathere was a man with precognition. One night after Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a party Evan meets Julia Edwards at their dorm and they go out for pizzaman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. She technically has a boyfriend from her Boston boarding school daysThat man would be valuable, but they soon break up and before long Julia and Evan have become inseparableright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, as they will remain for the rest of their college yearsthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718184564</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stephan Collishaw0571379559|title= The Song House of the StorkBroken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Stephan Collishaw has achieved a rare feat – a novel set amidst ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the horrors story of Nazi tyranny that does not shy away from human sufferingfour people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but does not drown instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it eithermight look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079190</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sabrina MahfouzClaire North|title= The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women WriteHouse of Odysseus|rating= 5|genre= AnthologiesLiterary Fiction |summary= ''What does it mean could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to be British and Muslim? This is the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a question these writers tackle few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with stunning claritydelicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. Modern day British society has a varied sense As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of cultural heritage; it is a society the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that is changing and moving forward as it adds more and more voices Clytemnestra brought to the populationIthaca's shores, but Queen Penelope is also one that has an undercurrent on the brink of anxiety and fear towards those that are minoritiesa fragile peace. So this collection displays how all One that fear is received; it comes in shatters however with the form return of stereotypical labels Orestes, King of Mycenae, and racial prejudicehis sister Elektra, which are themes eloquently reproduced hereseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863561462</amazonuk>0356516075
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= David SzalayKay Chronister|title= All That Man IsDesert Creatures|rating= 54|genre= Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary= Two teenage boys on With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an Inter Rail trip around Europe find themselves staying with almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a frustrated housewife on the outskirts of Praguerobotic takeover, a driftless young Frenchman discovers sexual fulfilment on world devoid of water or a package holiday in Cyprusnuclear holocaust, a lovestruck Hungarian minder this genre is embroiled in a prostitution racket at an upmarket London hotel, a Belgian academic is forced way for humans to confront his egotism when his partner becomes pregnant, a Danish tabloid journalist exposes a high-ranking politiciancathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures''s love affair, a property developer inspects by Kay Chronister is a new project in work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the French alps, fears that exist for humanity today. It is a Scot living in Croatia fails in love and business, a Russian millionaire confronts divorce, an elderly English politician survives a road accident in Italyshocking novel that still manages to find hope. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099593696</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Elizabeth HayEric LaRocca|title= His Whole LifeThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There
|rating= 5
|genre= Literary FictionHorror|summary= If you think that Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''un-put-down-ableBig Bad'' , whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the greatest accolade for a bookend of the story, think againbeatable. Eric LaRocca's 'Put-down-able'' can be stronger praise: ''His Whole LifeThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is put-down-ablenot like that. It encourages you to put it down, to wrap yourself is a collection of short stories more interested in the slow-moving story, the exquisite writing, the subtleties horrors of the charactersillness, grief and just walk around for a while with them slowly sinking in; it encourages you to come back to it again humiliation. Horrors that linger and again; mostly it encourages you are harder to put it down, to read it slowly, because you dondefeat than any ''Big Bad''t want it to end.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857055445</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Phillip LewisMadelaine Lucas|title= The BarrowfieldsThirst for Salt|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Just before Henry Aster's birth'Love, his fatherI'd read, was supposed to be a frustrated novelist light and lawyerweightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, reluctantly returns to the remote North Carolina mountains in which he was improbably raised and installs his a young family in a gothic mansion - nicknamed 'woman unravels the vulture house' year- worthy of his hero Edgar Allan Poelong relationship that once defined her. ThereOverlaid with later wisdom, Henry grows up under the desk of this fierce and brilliant narrator relives the affair with a mantwenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. But when a death in Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the family tips his father toward a fearsome unravelling, what was once a young son24-year-old narrator's reverence is poisoneddeepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and Henry flees, not to return until years later when he, too, must go home againfamilial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473636825</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Paula CocozzaMichael Grothaus|title= How to Be HumanBeautiful Shining People|rating= 4.5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= When Mary arrives home from work one day to find a magnificent fox on her lawn - his ears spiked in attention ''But fearing something and every hair bristling with his power having it come to surprise - it is only the beginning. He brings gifts (at least, Mary imagines they pass are gifts), and gradually makes himself at hometwo different things. And as he listens I'm willing to Marybet most of what we fear will never happen, Mary listens back. She begins or we can take steps to hear herself for the first time in yearschange it. Her bullish ex-boyfriend, still lurking on '' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the fringes question of her life, would identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be appalledhuman. So would Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the neighbours with a new baby. They only like wildlife that fits with the decor. But inside Mary a wildness development of technology is growing that will not be tamedexciting or frightening. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786330334</amazonuk>191458564X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen DunmoreJennifer Saint|title=Birdcage WalkAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Bristol 1792: Lizzie married well. John Diner Tredevant is a property developer who has reached the zenith of his life's work: building a terrace of prestigious houses overlooking the Avon Gorge. In a time of turbulence as France reaches the dawn of revolution, Britain, including Diner, fears it may spread. This puts Lizzie in a difficult position since her mother and step-father both believe in propagating pamphlets and ideas of egalitarianism for and to all, including women. In other words, they think nothing of spreading ideas of the sort that fanned the French flames. However, that's not Lizzie's only problem… there is a darkness in her husband's past of which she's unaware.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959403</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Emma Henderson
|title= The Valentine House
|rating= 4
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= In June 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family to spend the summer in their chalet, high in the French Alps. There, for the first time, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one of the 'uglies' - village girls employed as servants and picked, it is believed, to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eye. For Mathilde it is the start of a life-long entanglement with les anglais - strange, exciting people, far removed from the hard grind of farming. Except she soon finds the Valentines are less carefree than they appear, with a curiously absent daughter no one talks about. It will be decades - disrupted by war, accidents and a cruel betrayal - before Mathilde discovers the key to the mystery. And in 1976, the year Sir Anthony's great-great grandson comes to visit, she must decide whether to use it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444704028</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Hannah Tinti
|title=The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When she turns twelve''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, Samuel Hawley teaches his daughterI vowed. I would take my place, Loo (short not just in the name of the goddess. It was for Louise)the sake of my name, how to use her grandfathertoo. Atalanta''s rifle Princess. Shooting Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born a gun and hotwiring a car prove to be useful skills for this daughter of rather than a fugitive. Hawley son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a lawless modern cowboy formidable huntress, one who's had many close shaves over his years on the run longs for committing robberies and making dodgy dealsadventure. He and his young daughter form When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a cosy unit fierce band of their warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own; they live off legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of Chinese food challenges and vending machine snacks in motel rooms discovery and move on every six months or so to avoid the consequences of his criminal activities. But when they get to Olympusthrough it, MassachusettsAtalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, Hawley decides it's time to settle down. He buys a house by the water – with cash – and becomes a clean-living fishermanwill be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472234367</amazonuk>1472292154
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Nicole Dennis-Benn Amanthi Harris|title= Here Comes the Sun Beautiful Place|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= You have to assume the team behind the cover sleeve for Nicole Dennis-Benn's debut novel Here Come's the Sun have a keen sense of irony. Either that or none of them read beyond the first page.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178607124X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Polly Clark|title= Larchfield|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=I It's early summer when a young poet, Dora Fielding, moves to Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland and her hopes are first challenged. Newly married, pregnant, she's excited by the prospect of a life that combines family and creativity. She thinks she knows what being a person, a wife, a mother, means. She is soon shown that she is wrong. As the battle begins for her very sense of self, Dora comes to find the realities of small town life suffocating, and, eventually, terrifying; until she finds a way to escape reality altogether. Another poet, she discovers, lived in Helensburgh once. Wystan H. Auden, brilliant and awkward at 24, with his first book of poetry published, should be embarking on success and society in London. Instead, in 1930, fleeing a broken engagement, he takes a teaching post at Larchfield School for boys where he is mocked for his Englishness and suspected - rightly - of homosexuality. Yet in this repressed limbo Wystan will fall in love for the first time, even as he fights his deepest fears.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786481928</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Otto de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)|title=The Longest Night|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Emma Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has a philosophy – ''let returned to the dead rest, and love Villa Hibiscus on the living''southern coast of her home country. The problem with that, as This is a 96-year-old, is that there are too few living left, and so while the love remains place she will go through spent her memories, taking formative years. It is not a woozyplace she was born into, diaphanous path through all but the major events one she thinks of her lifeas home. Starting in wartime Berlin with one husband How she came to be at the Villa, who gets snatched from how it became her at workhome, fleeing to another place to wait and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for peace, this gentle and wait for him in vain, moving yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to Holland and finding new love, escape her past and so on – this wispy journey will show all much like the impacts musical score of wara film, from rationing right up to exile, death and survivalthat strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa. The memories are coming strongly here and now, as Emma is waiting for at least one of her two sons to visit, and then she will die…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857056085</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Marisa Silver178563335X|title= Little Nothing|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=In an unnamed country at the beginning of the last century, a peasant couple longs for a child. In despair they turn to gypsy tonics and archaic prescriptions, and one cold wintery night, the couple's wish comes true. But the silence that follows the birth forewarns of darker days to come. Strangers look on askance and fall speechless in the child's presence, and villagers protectively hush their children as they pass on narrow market lanes. Pavla is no ordinary child, but then this is no ordinary tale.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786071274</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSea Defences|author=Jeroen Blokhuis and Asja Novak (translator)|title=The Yellow HouseHilary Taylor|rating=35
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you were the needy kindWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, would you really join sitting in the drumming-out of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? Would you get on a feeling of belonging just because PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you were there when someone carried a dead dog down off a mountain? The main character in this novel doesneed to pick the children up. But he has something that will really get him notedHer husband, Christopher, wellcollects six-thoughtyear-ofold Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, includedwhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. He has come to Holthorpe, on the south of France to set up an artists' collectiveNorfolk coast, where he can live and work alongside his counterpartsis a lovely place, who can inspire each other and best each other but Rachel is struggling to create wonderful art. In fact develop a muchreal bond with the parish -respected guest is on his way now, so surely he can find kinship? The guestand she's name isin awe of the vicar, after allGail, Gauguinbut then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. The main character is, of course, Vincent van Gogh…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907320563</amazonuk>And then Hannah went missing.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer Down1398515388|title=Our Magic HourThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.
}}
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0989715337
|title=Papa on the Moon
|author=Marco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=There ''Some frogs had always been Katy, Audrey and Adamgotten into the well. They've been friends since school and now, along with Audrey's partner Nick, they remain inseparable as young professionals. Then, one day, Katy kills herself. No warning, no reason just no Katy. The four are suddenly three trying to make sense of a moment that leaves so many questions in a world that refuses to pause while they figure it out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925240835</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Ayobami Adebayo|title= Stay With Me|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= I have a ''thing'' about blurbs which give away far too much of the stories. Not this time. This time…''There are things even love can't do…if Walter stood waist-deep in the burden is too much and stays too long even love bendsfragrant water, cracks, comes close to breaking, and sometimes does breaknaked except for his beaten leather hat.'' ''But even when it's in a thousand pieces Long strands of their eggs wove around your feethim, that doesn't mean it's no longer love…'' That is sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the most heart-breakingly beautiful truth I've read in a long time – opening and it sums up this story. This is a story about love not being enough…but still being love. I hope this becomes a classic, not just in its native Nigeria but around barked down at the strange noise of the worldbuckets as he filled them. ''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782119469</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Michael Farris Smith|title= Desperation Road|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Maben How is on that for an opening? The style of this novel in the run. For a long while it's not clear whether she's running form of interconnected short stories goes from something or towards something, or simply back succinct and laconic to where it all started. She's got her small daughter with herwistful and musing, and they've been walking for turning on a very long timesixpence. It's hard on the childAnd author Marco North, but it's also clear that if it wasn't for who has the child Maben would stop runningmost wonderful turn of phrase, and it's clear that that would not be a good thingstarts as he means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843449870</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Samanta Schweblin and Megan McDowell (translator)Daisy Hildyard|title=Fever DreamEmergency
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Meet Carla. SheThe summary of this book doesn's a glamorous older woman, t come close to explaining what is done with poise and beauty, and someone who still looks a treat in a golden bikinithe premise.|isbn=1913097811}}  {{Frontpage |author=Sally Oliver |title=The Weight of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. But insideTraumatised after the death of her sister, she's different. The biggest issue she seems awakes to bear relates to an event a few years agofind strange, when her horse breeder husband had thick black hairs sprouting from the drama bones of both a hired, valuable stallion, her spine which steadily increase in size and their son, being poisonedvolume. Away from the right medical treatmentHer GP, Carla took David to a woman who said diagnosing the only hope was odd phenomenon as a 'migration' – basicallyphysical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to farm out part of David's spirit and swap it with someone else'sstay at Nede, to dilute the toxinan experimental new treatment centre in Wales. This was a success, as David seems Yet something strange is happening to have survived, although Carla is sure it was Marianne and the wrong decision – she now sees David as other patients at least part monsterNede: a metamorphosis of a kind. But another odd thing about this tale is that it isnAs Marianne't being narrated by Carlas memories threaten to overwhelm her, but by Nede offers her neighbour, another mother called Amanda, who is renting release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a holiday home nearbyterrible price: that of identity itself. And the further odd thing is to whom she is narrating this story – it's to David…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786070901</amazonuk>086154112X }}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shanthi SekaranNatalia Garcia Freire|title=Lucky BoyThis World Does Not Belong To Us
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Solimar wants more Early comments on this debut novel from her life than her Mexican home can offer and now she's 18Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, she can go find ita delight. Her target I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is to get to perhaps using the USA, expression in a target so blinding that she doesnway I't realise what reaching out for it will costm not familiar with. Meanwhile Kavya is living I have to confess my ignorance of the American dreamSpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. She's rich From the little I have read (in friendship, familytranslation, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a loving husband and life prospects and yet Kavya has a baby-shaped hole in her worldtendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism. The problem is that there's only one baby for both of them… Lucky boy!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0735212279</amazonuk>0861541901
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rick BassJennifer Saint|title= For a Little WhileElektra|rating= 4|genre= Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary='Elektra'For a Little While'' is a collection by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the heavily male dominated world of twenty-five short stories from Rick BassAncient Greece. As someone previously unacquainted with Bass' work this new collection was a wonderful introduction to his quirky, unusual style which focuses on stripped backCassandra, simple fables featuring often mundane situationsClytemnestra, mysterious characters and magical experiencesElektra are all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. The characters in each tale are beautifully crafted and Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories are dreamy, loose narratives covering everything from love to death to choices made and chances takenthe most extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273042</amazonuk>1472273915
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorthe Nors8409290103|title=Mirror, Shoulder, SignalIf Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=34.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Danish author Dorthe Nors has published four novelsTwenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a novella monthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly and a story collection. The protagonist correspondence - of her latest novel, fortysorts -something Sonja, sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has a problem with balance – literally. Due to an inner ear condition, if she bends over she's crippled by dizzinesssay than Patrick. Itwasn's inconvenient given t that Sonja is currently taking lessons at Folke Driving School. SheLowry senior didn's already doing poorly – her angryt care for his son, sweary instructor Jytte doesnit was that he didn't trust her enough care to change gears so does it all for her – and so can't have them finding out that she gets dizzy. Eventually Sonja switches so Folke himself is her instructor, but him in this country where he's an odious lechermight be a danger to his wife and other children. She really can't win The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273123</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alice Hoffman|title= Faithful|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend's future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt. What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Moving from a life in her parents basement to a life in New York City, Shelby remains damaged by the loss of her best friend, stumbling through life blindly and fighting desperately to become connected to anything at all. But, as she grows, she discovers emotionAntoine Laurain, survival Le Sonneur and happiness, bundled up with dogs, food, books and men she's probably best avoiding… Deep in New York City she find a circle of lost and found souls, and the angel who's been watching over her since that fateful night all those years ago…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471157717</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Octavio's JourneyRed is My Heart
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Meet Octavio[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, black and white and red. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas.|isbn=1913547183}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B098FFFBH9|title=Snowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4. He5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a large lunk, competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets a gentle giantgreat deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, living alone in a lowly Venezuelan town – a town which once, fleetinglylecturer at Imperial College, had fameLondon, fashion mother Kate and success through a minor miracleher twin, but has none any longerNick. OctavioKate runs the family business, it seemsa toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, has some unusual habits – here he which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.}}{{Frontpage|author=Yancey Williams|title=Crosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski isgetting on in years and, marching off despite his strenuous objections and thanks to the chemisthis daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a table across trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his backstock-in-trade of writing though, so here, for it was all his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work.|isbn=0986031658}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0008421714|title=Mrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The problem began just after the doctor had at the time publication of George March's most successful novel to write a prescription ondate. Now Everyone but Mrs March (we never learn exactly what know her first name only on the cause of last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to the prescription local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she waswrapping the bread, ''but we soon find out what isn't this the cause of the table is – Octavio cannot readfirst time he's based a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, and has learned nothing beyond cutting into his palm to allow the wound to let him escape the need to writeprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''. UntilPerhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna isthe whore of Nantes - ''a weak, a woman seems to suggest a way for him to learn to read and writeplain, detestable, and to love – but that experience also proves to Octavio that there is a whole host of other things he can put his mind topathetic, both for goodunloved, and for bad…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477311</amazonuk>unloveable wretch.''
}}
 
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